SUPPORT
YOUR LOCAL PUB
"The psychological
benefits of a visit to the pub are well known. Scientific proof may be hard to
come by but there is ample anecdotal evidence that, however bleak the prospects
for the world, your finances or love life, a visit to a pub will produce a
cheerier outlook and renewed sense of purpose and be a lot cheaper than an hour
with a shrink."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/article6432304.ece
MP's CALL FOR CHANGE IN
TIE TO SAVE PUBS (12th May 2009)
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/leisure/article6269689.ece
Competition referral may call
time on tied pubs http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/leisure/article6276394.ece
Extracts from Melannie Ried article in The Times 16th May 2009
(full
text here)
According to the British Beer & Pub Association,
pub closures are running at about six a day, almost ten times faster than in
2006 and nearly 20 times faster than in 2005. To lose the pub is to accept
the death of everything communal.
You can measure the health of a community - and its property prices - by how
good the pub is. The Prince of Wales was on to this ages ago. He initiated the
Pub is the Hub.
The evidence mounts. A report came out this week from the Institute for Public
Policy Research and Camra, the Campaign for Real Ale, which said that pubs
should be classless, egalitarian places where people from all walks of life rub
shoulders. The IPPR recommends that pubs should receive business rates relief of
50 per cent in recognition of their place as “centres for the community”.
Pubs have been around since the 11th century but unstoppable 21st-century social
forces - drink-driving legislation, the smoking ban, the internet, cheap
supermarket booze - are killing them. Drinking, instead of being a public,
moderate thing, is being done to extreme at home - and more people are dying of
cirrhosis as a result. (At least when you drink yourself to death in a pub, you
have a few laughs and lots of people come to your funeral.)
In tidying up society, making it neater, shinier, healthier and safer, something
has been lost. I think it's called soul. Pubs are repositories of character and
contact: messy, funny, traditional, politically incorrect places, which beat
Facebook and YouTube for entertainment every time.
If you want to help save the British Pub, please write
to your MP, Local Authority, newspaper, or write to us jim@brunswickpub.co.uk
BACK TO HOME PAGE
